The Last Enemy
by eukaryote
Summary: They could have visited this place together; for a moment Harry imagined coming here with Dumbledore, of what a bond that would have been, of how much it would have meant to him." Completed


**I have no idea how I thought up this fanfic, I just did. I'm working on something else that's much longer at the moment, but tonight I decided to write this instead. Much of this fanfic, especially the beginning, is taken out of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, chapter four.**

**Thanks in advance to anyone who might review this. :)**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. If I did, I'd be a lot richer and this fanfiction would be much better.**

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_"Seeing the grave was worse than hearing about it. Harry could not help thinking that he and Dumbledore both had deep roots in this graveyard, and that Dumbledore ought to have told him so, yet he had never thought to share this connection. They could have visited this place together; for a moment Harry imagined coming here with Dumbledore, of what a bond that would have been, of how much it would have meant to him."_

_Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, "Godric's Hollow" pg. 325-326 US_

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"Keep your wand at the ready, Harry."

"But I thought I'm not allowed to use magic outside school, sir?"

"If there is an attack," said Dumbledore, "I give you permission to use any counterjinx or curse that might occur to you. However, I do not think you need to worry about being attacked tonight."

"Why not, sir?"

"You are with me," said Dumbledore simply.

Harry nodded. After a moment, he said, "Where are going?"

"We are going a couple of places before arriving at the Burrow. Firstly, we will be paying a visit to Godric's Hollow."

"Why?" Harry asked, quite taken aback.

"Because you deserve it," Dumbledore stated simply. Then he added, "Besides, I happen to conveniently visit there once a summer anyway, for another reason." He paused for a second. "Am I correct in assuming you were already aware that Godric's Hollow is where your parents lived, Harry?"

"Yes," Harry said, curious about why Dumbledore would visit Godric's Hollow every year. Before he could ask, Dumbledore came to an abrupt stop.

"This will do, Harry. You have not, of course, passed your Apparition Test."

Now distracted, Harry said, "No. I thought you had to be seventeen?"

"You do. So you will need to hold on to my arm very tightly. My left, if you don't mind – as you may have noticed, my wand arm is a little fragile at the moment."

Harry gripped Dumbledore's proffered forearm.

"Very good," said Dumbledore. "Well, here we go."

Harry felt Dumbledore's arm twist away form him and redoubled his grip; the next thing he knew, everything went black; he was being pressed very hard from all directions; he could not breathe, there were iron bands tightening around his chest; his eyeballs were being forced back into his head; his eardrums were being pushed deeper into his skull and then –

He gulped great lungfuls of cold night air and opened his streaming eyes. He felt as though he had just been forced through a very tight rubber tube. It was a few seconds before he realized that Privet Drive had vanished. He and Dumbledore were now standing in a small town. His comprehension catching up with his senses, Harry realized that he had just Apparated for the first time in his life.

"Are you all right?" Dumbledore asked, looking down at him solicitously. "The sensation does take some getting used to."

"I'm fine," said Harry, rubbing his ears, which felt as though they had left Privet Drive rather reluctantly. "But I think I might prefer brooms…."

Dumbledore smiled, drew his traveling cloak a little more tightly around his neck, and said, "This way."

They set off down a narrow road. Cottages stood on either side of them. It seemed like quite a cozy and welcoming place and Harry had a hard time imagining that he had ever lived here. He looked carefully at everything that they passed, trying to receive any inkling of a memory even though he knew he would not remember anything that he had seen when he was only a year old. Dumbledore kept quiet, but Harry did not notice.

Soon a church came into view. A little further ways down, a graveyard. Harry felt his heart thump in his chest and he wondered whether he now wanted to see his parents' graves at all. Despite his new found fear, he continued walking numbly, as if his legs were in control of him and not the other way around. He was staring at a war memorial when it suddenly transformed. It was now a statue of two adults and a baby. A man with untidy hair and glasses, a woman with long hair and a kind, pretty face, and a baby sitting in his mother's arms. Harry blinked, for even though he was far more used to the Wizarding World now than he was at eleven years old, it could still surprise him. He quickly looked at Dumbledore to see if he could see it too.

"Only wizards can see it change," Dumbledore said quietly.

Harry said nothing. They passed the statue, and Harry looked back at it. It had changed back to the war memorial.

Suddenly Harry was standing in front of a kissing gate that was the entrance to the graveyard. Dumbledore opened it swiftly as if he expected Harry to just stand before it when they reached it. He led the way, clearly with a specific location in mind. Harry glanced at the nearest grave and saw the name 'Abbott' upon it. Harry remembered Hannah Abbott, the Hufflepuff who was in his year.

"How many wizarding families have lived here?" Harry asked, still looking at the grave of an Abbott.

"Many," Dumbledore replied quietly.

They continued to walk past graves, and Harry read as many of the names as he could, but he didn't see any other wizarding names that he recognized. Dumbledore stopped at a headstone of white marble. The words written upon it seemed to shine in the darkness, so Harry was able to make out the words easily.

JAMES POTTER - LILY POTTER

BORN 27 MARCH 1960 - BORN 30 JANUARY 1960

DIED 31 OCTOBER 1981 - DIED 31 OCTOBER 1981

_The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death._

Harry read the words slowly. "'The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death'…?" he read aloud, feeling alarmed. "Isn't that a Death Eater idea? Why is that there?"

"It does not mean conquering over death as in becoming immortal, Harry," Dumbledore said quietly. "It means conquering over death as in living after death."

Harry felt a lump in his throat form, and he instantly tried to get rid of it by swallowing painfully. Dumbledore was easy to talk to about personal matters, but he was not easy to cry in front of. So, to fight off tears, Harry spoke. "But they aren't living. They're gone." His voice cracked on the last word, and Harry thought perhaps silence would have been a better decision. But once he started speaking, he felt he couldn't stop. "Their remains are underneath me and they have no idea I'm here. And they don't care that I am... because they can't." Tears fell down his face that Harry couldn't stop, and he felt angry at himself that he couldn't suppress his emotions.

"How can you say that after you saw the echo of their souls just over a year ago?" Dumbledore asked, sounding both concerned and slightly incredulous. "_They_ know you are here, Harry. Their remains underneath you do not."

Harry had now decided that the best way to contain himself was to keep his head bowed, away from Dumbledore's gaze. He saw out of the corner of his eye Dumbledore wave his wand in a slow motion and flowers landed at Harry's feet. He put his uninjured left hand on Harry's shoulder for a moment in reassurance, and then Dumbledore walked away toward the headstones ahead.

Harry wiped the tears off his face with his sleeve quickly and then picked up the blue and red flowers Dumbledore had conjured. He knelt down and placed them with care against the headstone, readjusting them several times before being satisfied with how they rested. He knelt there for several seconds in silence and then saw Dumbledore conjure more flowers two headstones ahead of him. Curious, Harry momentarily forgot about his despair and stood up shakily, his knees hurting. He slowly walked to where Dumbledore stood.

Dumbledore was standing before a dark gravestone. He did not make any small movement of recognition that Harry was now standing beside him. Harry squinted and looked downward at the dark stone, trying to make out the names on it.

KENDRA DUMBLEDORE

25 SEPTEMBER 1859 –

5 JUNE 1899

AND HER DAUGHTER ARIANA

25 MAY 1885

27 AUGUST 1899

_Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also._

Harry stared at Dumbledore, and Dumbledore almost smiled at the look of horror and astonishment on his face.

Harry launched into speech, "Who –?"

"Kendra was my mother, and Ariana was my sister."

"How did they die? It looks like," Harry squinted again at the stone and did some quick math in his head, "Ariana was only fourteen when she died."

"Yes." Dumbledore's voice had now taken on a different tone to it and Harry could not decipher exactly what emotion was behind it. Dumbledore sighed. "My sister was attacked by some teenage Muggle boys when she was six years old. They had seen her doing magic, magic no one can control at such a young age. Well, when she could not show them how she was doing it, they decided that they were going to make sure she wasn't going to do it again. She… was never the same again. What they did drove her half-insane, and made her determined to never use magic again. But sometimes she would just hold it in too long and it would explode out of her. At those times, she was dangerous and hard to control…. Well, one day she had an outburst and my mother was killed. An accident, but an irreversible one."

Harry was staring at Dumbledore as if he had never seen him before. He waited for Dumbledore to continue, but he fell silent and stayed silent.

"What about your sister? How did she die?" Harry asked, watching him carefully.

Harry saw Dumbledore wince slightly in the dim light. For a moment, Harry thought that Dumbledore wasn't going to reply at all. Then he said, "Grindelwald killed her."

Harry's mouth dropped. "_Grindelwald_? The dark wizard you defeated?"

"The very same."

"How old was he? How old were you?"

"He was around my age, and I was a bit less than two years older than you."

"You _knew_ him back then?"

"We had met two months earlier," Dumbledore said shortly.

Though Harry's mind was still swirling with questions, he stopped asking them, not wanting to interrogate Dumbledore too much. For a few moments, Harry just looked down at the headstones in silence. Then he looked at Dumbledore and realized he was watching him.

Dumbledore smiled at him gently and Harry suddenly fully appreciated his friendship with him, however odd it was.

"Come on, Harry. We still have one last place to visit before we can go to the Burrow."

With that, they both walked away from the graves of Harry's parents and Dumbledore's mother and sister and toward the exit.


End file.
